Iron Fist S01E10 Review: Two-Handed

Iron Fist, Season 1, Episode 10: Black Tiger Steals Heart

"Wow, you're the worst Iron Fist ever." 

Well, maybe not the worst Iron Fist -- mostly because I've never read a comic book with Iron Fist in it my entire life -- but I do know that everything that's been going on with this show has gone from 'hey, this might have potential' to 'okay this is just stupid'. It's a leg up from the previous episode, of course, but then very few things would be. There are some genuinely great fighting scenes between the characters involved -- Danny versus Bakuto in the computer room, and the huge brawl that Danny and Davos has against the large army of Bakuto's troops are well done. 

But really, while the revelation that Bakuto and Colleen are not the Chaste but rather a rival faction within the Hand was mildly surprising, it's still not quite enough. We're only three episodes off from the end of the season, and we haven't even really had any answers regarding K'un Lun, the specifics of Danny's oath or why he left. Information about the first two can be inferred from Danny's ramblings -- he's supposed to guard the passageway between K'un Lun and the real world, and he abandoned it -- but the whys and wherefores still elude me. Is it to be a billionaire? He sure has no idea what to do with his position, and if nothing else fucked his company hard. Is it out of rejection of his duty as the Iron Fist? He certainly wasted no time in fighting the Hand the moment he sees them like it's his god-given duty. Honestly, I don't mind storytelling that doesn't spoon-feed details to us. But at some point we do kind of need answers. Season one of Daredevil and Luke Cage both had flashback-centric episodes around the mid-point of the season. Daredevil's second season had Punisher give us his backstory for context near the halfway point, and Elektra slightly after that. Jessica Jones had multiple flashbacks over the first half of the season that slowly reveal her connections to Luke and Killgrave. It's a bit too late for any answers to appear in the last two or three episodes. It's not bad to keep some secrets for us to find out later, but so much scant details about Danny's life in K'un Lun that it's not until this episode that we find out that Danny doesn't actually know how to properly use the Iron Fist powers. And if we learn earlier that Danny's just a novice running around with a power he barely understands, maybe it'll make us more understanding of his earlier antics this season? I dunno. 

And honestly, another big problem with Iron Fist is that, well, Danny behaves as a child. A lot of what he's doing can be shrugged off as a child acting out, and that's mostly a problem of the scripting than anything -- as I've complained these past two episodes, nothing about what Danny Rand does really makes sense, and I'm struggling to honestly root for him. This isn't a race problem either -- my complaints about this writing is going to be the same regardless of Danny's ethnicity, because this angry confused kid just isn't being very appealing. It's also not until relatively late in this season, too, that we learn how much stunted Danny's mental growth is, but it honestly doesn't excuse a lot of the nonsensical bullshit he did for a good chunk of the series' earlier episodes. 

Also, why the fuck would Danny still trust Harold? He knows that Harold's been working with Gao, and yes, Harold was trying to undermine Gao, but Gao did tell Danny that Harold was part of the Hand's machinations. Unless Danny thinks everything Gao says is a lie?

Danny is introduced to this college-esque location by Colleen and Bakuto, who notes that it's some kind of school for the lost, and Danny quickly points out the similarities of the place to a cult. One way or another, she discovers Gao being kept, and Colleen reveals that they are the Hand. Danny absolutely loses his shit, but again, instead of portraying someone genuinely betrayed (Daredevil-Elektra is a very good example of this done right) he comes off like a kid who didn't get to watch a cartoon. Danny's arguments, are, as always, one-sided and bull-headed. "The Hand is evil and you're brainwashed because you grew here!" Colleen gives the very, very good counter-argument that Danny himself has been brainwashed by the secular monks in K'un Lun, but Danny's answer? It basically amounts to "well, I'm right, and you're not! So there!" I mean, it's not that I disagree with the fact that the Hand is evil no matter what (not in the least because Bakuto proceeds to be a villain afterwards) but he honestly was a bit of a little shit to poor Colleen. 

Bakuto himself is... okay as a villain, I guess? He tries to sell himself as this zen master and ally to Danny, even showing footage of a 1940's incarnation of the Iron Fist to justify his interest in the mythical immortal weapon, but it doesn't take much for Bakuto to reveal that he's taking over what Madame Gao left behind, basically putting Harold under his thumb, fighting Danny in the computer room and all that. But he's shown up so little and has so little screentime before this that I just can't really care all that much about him.

Still, I have just realized that Bakuto is played by Ramon Rodriguez, a.k.a. Leo from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, a.k.a. that annoying roommate character that screams in every single scene he's in. I couldn't have told that! Bakuto's a pretty awesome and smooth-talking character, and definitely as far removed from Leo as you can get. 

Colleen's conflicted, obviously, though I guess seeing her entire community bullrush and attempt to beat up and capture Danny put doubts in her head which Danny raised, causing her to betray the Hand and let Danny out.

Oh, and Danny's rescued by this very awesome kung fu dude Davos, who I think was mentioned a grand total of once in one of Danny's talks about K'un Lun. Also shows up last episode as this enigmatic nameless dude, but since we've never seen Davos before last episode he's just this very weird distraction. Davos was sent by their master Lei Kung (which I'm assuming was the ghostly Jedi kung fu master from before) to bring Danny back because no one's guarding K'un Lun. And, well, Davos maakes some really good arguments that Danny himself can't really argue against, because he's lost his sense of superiority against an equal like Davos. Davos has the authority to call Danny Rand out on his bullshit (and he has a literal mountain of bullshit) and he's not afraid to do so. Hell, even the Iron Fist itself agrees on Davos with that, because it plain refuses to be used in the battle. So Danny might have to go back to K'un Lun to actually learn to, y'know, use the Iron Fist. 

The Meachums have... some... bullshit plot that I honestly can't bring myself to care about. Joy and Harold work with each other, but Harold's still keeping most of the Hand stuff away from Joy, instead focusing on retaking the company. Harold thinks he's free, but Bakuto shows up and throws his weight around. Harold engineers the suicide of board boss Lawrence so Joy (who doesn't know about the truth regarding who killed Lawrence) can take over and be the saviour of Rand Corporations. Oh and Harold wants to kill Bakuto. And he gets pissed at one point because Joy refuses to have a toast with him. 

Oh, and having Harold pave the way for the takeover of Rand Corporations means that Danny'll later end up taking it over by himself without having to put in any effort about learning how to be a proper entrepreneur, isn't it? Or at least be a team player that stops Rand from doing anything overtly evil. Jeez, I really, really pity the rest of the board for having to keep up with Danny Rand for the rest of their careers. 

Overall, while the episode had a fair amount of good points -- the fight scenes, in particular, but also performances from Davos and Colleen -- it has too much going against it, the least of all being Danny Rand is a childish, petulant little shit, that I still find myself not really enjoying this episode.